Story: Stanley

A sophisticated movie critic named Stanley was so dedicated to his work that he paid a team of surgeons to transplant a video projector into his head so he could both show films and provide a running critical commentary on how to watch them. When the surgery was complete, he was installed in an elite downtown venue. Stanley was living a film critic’s dream.

Unfortunately, the medical science used on Stanley was imperfect. The projected image froze when he ran out of memory. His audiences found his unreliability annoying. Worse, his reviewing style gradually became passé. Stanley's audience looked, laughed, and left.

Eventually he was tossed out of the theatre. Then his contract with the newspaper was not renewed. Soon his movie critiques appeared only on placemats in restaurants. Eventually he found a good position at a small but prestigious University, where he became an Assistant Lecturer of Cinema/Audio Visual Application. But he failed at academic politics and did not get tenure.

After a few years he finally found a permanent position as the Entertainment Associate at a summer camp for teenagers. He had to meet popular demand by showing dreadful movies about summer camps infested with killers of teens. Stanley despised these films, and his critic’s wit was largely lost on his audiences--but at least he could still tell himself that he was living his dream.